The invention relates generally to industrial storage and transportation carts, and more specifically to an easy-to-assemble kit suited for non-permanent assembly into a variety of combinations to form various portable storage and transportation carts.
Many manufacturers, distributors, retailers, businesses and other entities must store or transport articles as part of their operations. Such articles may include raw materials, components, supplies, work-in-process, finished goods, and packages or the like. When these articles are sufficiently small or light-weight, they may be stored or transported on portable carts which are designed to be moved manually, usually by a single person. Such carts typically include casters and/or wheels to facilitate easy movement across floors, platforms, ramps or the like. Dollies are a common form of such carts. Dollies typically include a horizontal platform or frame supported on wheels and/or casters, and often include a handle for grabbing, pushing, and steering the dollies.
Certain operations, however, require more specialized carts. For example, glass plates and other fragile, substantially planar objects or the like often cannot be safely stacked atop each other, and are typically transported or stored on carts having vertical uprights to support and space the articles in a vertical orientation. When panels and the like are freshly painted or chemically coated, they are often placed on carts that support the wet objects so that the objects don""t impermissibly contact one another or their supporting means. These panels may be transported, stored, and/or dried on carts having a series of horizontal bars or shelf tubes that define horizontal support planes on the cart. Other articles or objects may be best stored or transported on carts that have one or more shelves for supporting the articles.
Though carts such as conventional dollies are readily commercially available, specialized carts for particular applications may be more difficult to come by. Even if a suitable cart is commercially available, its cost may be high. If a required cart must be specially manufactured for a particular application, its cost may be even more prohibitive.
Therefore, there is a need for an affordable storage/transportation cart that is flexible in design, easily portable, strong and durable, and that can be adapted to suit a wide variety of applications. Similarly, there is a need for an easy-to-assemble kit for storage/transportation carts that can be assembled into a wide variety of cart sizes and configurations for a multitude of applications. Also, there is a need for a storage/transportation cart that can be quickly and easily reconfigured to adapt the cart to suit an instant application.
The present invention meets these needs by providing a kit for constructing a variety of easy-to-assemble portable storage and transportation carts. The kit includes a plurality of elongated hollow frame members having substantially uniform outer profiles. Each frame member includes a first and a second end, sidewalls, and at least one series of incrementally spaced pairs of aligned holes through opposite walls of the frame member along the length thereof. Each pair of aligned holes have a common axis which is perpendicular to the sidewalls and preferably passes through the longitudinal centerline of the frame member. The frame members in a kit may have the same length, or two or more lengths of frame members may be included. The kit also includes a plurality of three-way couplings for connecting two or three frame members together at right angles to each other. In addition, the kit may include a plurality of unions for connecting the ends of two frame members together end-to-end. A plurality of cylindrical shelf tubes is also provided. The shelf tubes have outer diameters slightly smaller than the diameters of the incrementally spaced holes in the sidewalls of the frame members such that the shelf tubes can be fittingly engaged in the holes in the sidewalls of the frame members. The kit further includes a plurality of casters and a plurality of wheel adapters configured for mounting the casters to the frame members. The frame members, three-way couplings, unions, shelf tubes, casters, and wheel adapters or a portion thereof are configured and suited for nonpermanent assembly together in a variety of combinations and configurations to form various portable utility and transportation carts.
Preferably, the hollow frame members have substantially uniform square cross-sections and include first and second pairs of opposing sidewalls, where all four sidewalls include incrementally spaced holes. The holes in each pair of opposing sidewalls are longitudinally aligned with each other, and the longitudinal positions of the holes in one pair of opposing sidewalls can be staggered from the longitudinal positions of the holes in the other pair of opposing sidewalls. In this arrangement, the three-way couplings, unions, and wheel adapters are configured for mating assembly with the square profile of the frame members. In a preferred embodiment, each three-way coupling, union, and wheel adapter includes a series of holes which are suitably located and spaced for matching alignment with the incrementally spaced holes in the sidewalls of the frame members during assembly. These matching holes may be used to pin, bolt, or similarly affix a coupling, union, or wheel adapter to a frame member or to each other. In addition, each three-way coupling and union may include at least one transverse set screw for setting a frame member or other kit component that is respectively engaged in the coupling or union.
In a preferred embodiment, each three-way coupling includes a hollow vertical socket for receiving an end of a first frame member, a hollow channel for receiving a second frame member; and a hollow lateral socket for receiving the end of a third frame member. The vertical socket, the lateral socket, and the channel are attached to each other and have longitudinal axes which are perpendicular to each other. The sockets have substantially identical internal profiles that are compatible with outer profiles of the frame members and are suitable for mating engagement over the outer profiles of the frame members.
The unions are for the purpose of connecting two frame members in end-to-end relationship. For this purpose, each union includes a hollow body having a first end for mating engagement over an end of a first frame member, and a second end for mating engagement over an end of a second frame member. The unions have cross-sectional profiles of such shape and size to provide close, fitting engagements with the walls of the frame members.
The wheel adapters preferably include a horizontal channel which receives a horizontal frame member. A vertical socket is provided, over which a vertical frame member or three-way coupling may be mounted. The horizontal channel and vertical socket are attached to each other and to a plate that may be attached to the mounting plate on a caster.
The invention is also directed to storage/transportation carts constructed from the kit described hereinabove. The frame members, three-way couplings, unions, shelf tubes, casters and wheel adapters or a portion thereof are assembled together to form a variety of configurations of storage and transportation carts.
For example, one such series of storage/transportation carts includes pairs of the shelf tubes assembled in a cantilevered array on the cart such that each pair of shelf tubes delineates a substantially horizontal support plane for supporting a substantially planar object. This cart may also include a plurality of protective sleeves movably mounted on the cantilevered shelf tubes. The sleeves provide adjustable support points or cushions on the shelf tubes for supporting substantially planar objects at discrete points on the shelf tubes.
In one embodiment of this series, a base is formed of a pair of foot rails and a cross rail formed of frame members connected together by a pair of three-way couplings, four casters, and four wheel adapters. The cross rail has a first end connected to one foot rail by one three-way coupling and a second end connected to the other foot rail by the second three-way coupling such that the two foot rails are parallel to each other and the cross rail is perpendicular to each foot rail. The casters are mounted on the base at the ends of the foot rails by the wheel adapters. This embodiment further includes a pair of opposed vertical stanchions, each vertical stanchion comprising a first frame member and having a top end and a bottom end. Each vertical stanchion is mounted to the base by one of the three-way couplings connecting the cross rail to the foot rails. A cross beam includes a horizontal frame member having a left end, and a right end, and a second pair of three-way couplings. Each end of the cross beam is connected to a vertical stanchion at its top end by a three-way coupling. A plurality of pairs of shelf tubes are arranged in a cantilevered array on the vertical stanchions. The shelf tubes are engaged in the holes of the frame members comprising the vertical stanchions such that each shelf tube is substantially parallel to the foot rails and each pair of shelf tubes delineates a substantially horizontal support plane for supporting a substantially planar object. The shelf tubes may be cantilevered from one side of the vertical stanchions. In this arrangement, a pair of stanchion braces may be provided. Each stanchion brace includes a frame member connected at one end to a vertical stanchion and at a second end to a foot rail that is connected to the stanchion, such that each stanchion and associated brace form an acute angle.
In an alternative arrangement, the shelf tubes may extend through the holes in the frame members comprising the vertical stanchions so that the shelf tubes extend outwardly from both sides of the vertical stanchions. First portions of the shelf tubes are cantilevered from a front side of the vertical stanchions and second portions of the shelf tubes are cantilevered from a back side of the vertical stanchions, thereby forming a front cantilevered array and a back cantilevered array of substantially horizontal support planes. The vertical stanchions may further include a second frame member connected end-to-end with the first frame member by a union to make the cart taller.
Another series of carts constructed from a kit as described above includes pairs of the shelf tubes arranged vertically on a cart base such that each pair of shelf tubes delineates a substantially vertical support plane for supporting substantially planar objects. Such a cart may include a rectangular base comprised of four frame members joined at their ends by four three-way couplings to form corners. A vertical post may be mounted at each corner to the three-way coupling, which in turn is mounted on the vertical socket of the wheel adapter. In this series, the cart base further includes a plurality of shelf tubes disposed between two opposing frame members of the base. The shelf tubes are spaced and arranged to form a horizontal support surface. Pairs of additional shelf tubes are vertically supported on the base to form a plurality of supports for storing panels or the like in a vertical plane. The vertical shelf tubes are supported in the holes in the sidewalls of the frame members forming the base. Casters are mounted on the bottom of the base at each corner by a wheel adapter. The cart may further include a platform supported on the first plurality of shelf tubes. The cart may additionally include a third vertically mounted shelf tube between each pair of vertical shelf tubes to provide an additional central vertical support.
Another series of carts constructed from the above kit includes at least one horizontal shelf. In this embodiment, a rectangular base is formed as described above with frame members extending upwardly from each corner. One or more pairs of shelf tubes are assembled between the upstanding corner frame members such that each pair of shelf tubes is spaced and vertically aligned for supporting a shelf in a horizontal position. At least one shelf is supported on and between a pair of shelf tubes.
Yet another type of cart or dolly is formed from a rectangular base with casters as described above. The dolly may include a plurality of shelf tubes disposed in the holes in the sidewalls of two opposing frame members which form the base and extending between the opposing frame members. These shelf tubes form a horizontal support surface on the dolly. The dolly may also include two opposed pairs of vertical corner posts, each corner post comprising a frame member having a top end and a lower end, the lower end being connected to a corner of the base by the three-way coupling. Two handle bars may be provided which include a shelf tube horizontally disposed between the top ends of each pair of corner posts.
These and other aspects of the present invention as disclosed herein will become apparent to those skilled in the art after a reading of the following description of the preferred embodiments when considered with the drawings.